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The Thing in the Yard
My friend, Anna, called me and asked if I could take over a babysitting job for her. Anna had the lead in the school play, and she had to go to dress rehearsal. “I can’t babysit!” she moaned into the phone, “they’ll give away my part if I skip rehearsal!” Anna and I both knew that the theatre teacher, Mr. Olsen, wouldn’t actually give her part to someone else if she missed rehearsal. Anna was overly-dramatic about everything. Her dream was to go to a nearby college that was well-known for its TV/radio program. The college had its own TV station, and Anna was convinced that if she could get a part in one of them, she’d be discovered by a big Hollywood agent. I had never met the family that Anna was supposed to babysit for, but I agreed to take the job. “You owe me big time,” I told her as she gave me the name, address, and phone number. The Callahans were new in town. They had a formal event to go to and they needed someone to watch their seven-year-old daughter, Emma, for a few hours. They were willing to pay me fifty dollars, and they promised to be home before midnight. Emma was a sweet little girl. She had curly blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was just learning to read, and after her parents left for the night, we settled in on the couch with a Junie B. Jones book. Emma was very adamant that I not help her in any way. “Mommy says I have to sound it out,” she said matter-of-factly. After finishing the book, I put Emma to bed and then went back downstairs to watch TV. I found a nature documentary about meerkats (hey, it was either meerkats or Kardashians) and started to watch. I was only about fifteen minutes in when the TV suddenly lost its signal. The screen filled with white static. I was flipping confusedly through the channels when Emma came into the room, dragging along her blankie. “There’s a monster outside my room,” she said in a small, shaky voice. Her face was pale and I noticed that she was shivering. I turned and glanced out the window behind me. The waning moon was half-hidden by clouds, but it was still light enough for me to see the back yard. The Callahan’s back yard was large and bordered on a thickly wooded area. A knee-high stone fence separated the yard from the woods. There was a small plastic playhouse in the center of the yard. Something was standing next to it. It stood on two legs, like a person, but seemed too tall and gangly. Its legs were abnormally long. I didn’t get a good look at it, as it turned and darted into the woods, stepping over the fence as if it wasn’t even there. I didn’t want to believe that I’d seen it. Hell, if Emma hadn’t started screaming, I think I would’ve been able to convince myself that I had just imagined it. I grabbed Emma, pulling her in close to me and trying to shush her. My mind was racing, but I knew one thing: I needed to call the police. The TV suddenly flipped back on. The screen showed Emma’s empty bedroom. It was as if a camera had been set up outside of her closed bedroom window. A low gravelly voice spoke. “We are coming.” The voice was soft and raspy, as if whoever was speaking was trying to whisper and shout at the same time. I jerked away from the television, scooping Emma up into my arms as I did so. She was screaming again, burying her face in my shoulder. I remembered seeing a landline in the den, so I ran into the next room. I picked up the phone, but didn’t hear anything. Whatever was fucking with me had somehow cut the phone lines. Emma clung to me, pressing her face into my leg and screaming hysterically. Somehow, above Emma’s shrill wails, I heard a faint tapping sound coming from behind me. I turned. The thing from the backyard was standing right outside the window. It had stooped down and was peering in through the window. Well, I think it was peering in. It didn’t have a face. It had a blank greenish-gray concave, as if its face had been removed out with an ice cream scoop. It was completely and totally smooth and featureless. I didn’t pick Emma up this time. I grabbed her wrist instead. With my free hand, I grabbed a poker from alongside the fireplace. I ran, pulling Emma along behind me. I had to find a safe space to hide Emma, a place without windows that the thing in the yard could look through. We wound up back in the living room, and I opened up the closet door. The closet held neatly-labeled boxes containing toys and stuffed animals. There was just enough space for a frightened little girl to stand in the back. I pushed Emma into the closet. “You have to be brave,” I told her. “You have to stay in here and be very quiet and very brave.” I didn’t really have any sort of plan. I could hear something scraping against the side of the house. The thing in the yard was scratching at the house, clawing at the siding. My mind was racing a mile a minute. I couldn’t seem to hang onto a solid thought. “Are - are you f-freaked out?” stammered Emma. “It’s gonna be OK,” I told her. “Stay here and be very quiet.” I think she was about to say more, but I shut the closet door. I turned to the sliding glass door that led to the backyard. The thing was walking away from the window. It was coming towards me. It lumbered along slowly, moving in sharp, jerky movements. Its arms swung by its sides. They looked absurdly short in comparison to its legs. Without thinking, I opened up the sliding glass door. The thing stopped, tilting its head at me quizzically. It was as if it hadn’t expected me to come out of the house. I ran towards it, swinging the fireplace poker as hard as I could. There was a thick, crunching sound as the poker collided with the thing’s legs. The legs buckled immediately, snapping backwards. The thing toppled, shrieking and squealing as it fell. It landed hard on what I guess was its rear end. It flailed its arms at me, but I swung the poker again. I felt it collide with the spot where the thing’s face should have been. The thing stopped screaming and toppled backwards, slumping onto the ground. The back yard suddenly filled up with light. My heart was pounding and adrenaline had flooded my body; for a brief moment, I thought that the sun had come up. I stumbled back, blinking. I dropped the poker without fully realizing it. People were pouring out of the woods, shouting and screaming at me. My legs gave out, and the next thing I know, I was sitting on the ground. A woman wearing jeans and a T-shirt was screaming at me. She had a set of chunky yellow headphones dangling around her neck and what looked like a hand-held radio clipped to her belt. At first, I thought it was a Walkman. She was waving her arms and shouting. Even though I could hear her perfectly, I couldn’t seem to understand her. “What have you done?!” she screamed, “it’s a show! It’s a goddamn show! You fucking idiot!” Someone pulled the yelling woman away from me. I looked around. The back yard was full of people. Some of the people were holding cameras and boom mics. Anna was there. She was crying. Great, heaving sobs wracked her body. I remember thinking that she should've been at play practice. A man offered me his hand and pulled me to my feet. The man explained to me that a bunch of seniors at the local college were filming a TV show for their final project. It was a prank show, like that one the SyFy channel used to air years ago. Someone would call in and suggest a scary prank to play on a friend or family member. The prank would be videotaped, and then the whole thing would be broadcast on the TV show. They had actually filmed a few episodes already; one showed a boy peeing his pants when a creepy-looking clown popped out of his locker, and another showed a girl screaming as a masked man with a rubber machete chased her out of a parking garage. Anna had called in and pitched a prank to be played on me; she would send me on a phony babysitting gig and then a guy dressed like Slenderman would terrorize me. Emma and the Callahans were all actors. Anna had thought that she could impress the students and that they’d let her have a small, recurring role in the show. The man I attacked with the poker was named Jude Plaskett. He had been walking on stilts; my first blow had broken the stilts, but left him basically unharmed. My second blow put him in a coma. He didn’t wake up. There was some talk about filing charges against me. Luckily, that never happened. I had been terrified out of my mind and had been convinced that a monster was about to kill both myself and the child I was supposed to be babysitting. Jude’s family wound up suing the college and his classmates. This happened a little over a week ago. Anna still won’t talk to me. She’s furious that I ruined her shot at TV fame. I’m pretty mad that she set me up for such a godawful prank in the first place. I can’t sleep at night. I keep thinking about the horrendous crunching sound that the poker made when it collided with Jude’s face. And lately, I keep thinking that there’s something in my back yard. I keep waking up to the sound of bushes and trees rustling, but when I go to the window, I don’t see anything. I don’t know what I keep expecting to see. I don’t really want to. Category:Reddit Pastas Category:Slenderman Category:Beings